Group Members

Yassir Makkawi is a professor of Chemical Engineering with over 35 years of academic and industrial experience. He earned a PhD in Chemical Engineering from Heriot-Watt University (UK). Before joining the American University of Sharjah (AUS), Dr. Makkawi held various academic positions with leading universities in the UK for 12 years, including Heriot-Watt, Edinburgh, Sheffield, and Aston. He also spent around 8 years during the early years of his career serving the oil/gas industry sectors in the Middle East. His current research interests are focused on waste-to-energy, computational modeling of multiphase flow and reactive systems, waste recycling, hydrogen energy, solar thermal conversion, and biofuels and biochar. Dr. Makkawi is a Fellow of the UK Higher Education Academy (FHEA), a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (MRSC), and a Chartered Engineer (CEng). 

Ms. Baraa completed her B.Sc. and M.Sc. in Chemical Engineering at the University of Khartoum (Sudan). Before joining the group, she worked for two years as a Graduate teaching assistant/ research assistant at the Materials Research and Nanotechnology Center,  University of Khartoum. Ms. Baraa’s current research interests include Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) modeling and producing biofuels from algae.

Research projects: 

• Growth and harvesting of microalgae
• Computational modeling of biomass thermal conversion
• Analysis of biochar and biofuels

Mr. Omar completed a B.Sc and M.Sc in Chemical Engineering at the American University of Sharjah. His current research interests is focused on the conversion of sewage sludge into biofuel and biochar through gasification and pyrolysis processes. 

Research project:

• Thermal conversion of biosolids and algae.
• Green hydrogen
• Solar-thermal conversion reactors​